Intentional Software

Definition - What does Intentional Software mean?

Intentional software is a concept by which application functions are rendered to simulate the way a computer will manipulate an application. To determine whether the intentional software process has succeeded, the intention of the developer must be compared with what the application functions actually do.

Charles Simonyi is credited with the idea for intentional software during his work at Microsoft.

Techopedia explains Intentional Software

Intentional software starts by defining the ultimate goal of each function of the application, using the “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) concept. The final product of the application is then generated by the IP system automatically.

The domain workbench system is responsible for applying a sequence of changes aimed at realizing the required functioning of the application. Programming languages typically assign symbolic names to each of its programming elements in the form of text corresponding with a certain source code. Intentional software keeps track of each name used to refer to every programming entity. This is done through both a unique identifier and a symbolic name.